


Hey Pretty

by KellerProcess



Series: Bound Angel [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, BDSM, BDSM that isn't necessarily risk-aware, Beating, Beelzebub Has a Penis (Good Omens), Blood, Bondage, Bottom Gabriel, Food Kink, Gabriel Has a Penis (Good Omens), Masochism, Other, Public Humiliation, Rape Fantasy, Restraints, Sadism, Salirophilia, Top Beelzebub (Good Omens), abduction fantasy, aka the fetish of getting someone dirty and tearing their clothes, beelzebub uses she/her pronouns, collaring, consensual sex but consent not explicitly asked for, face-slapping, forced stripping, gabriel uses he/him pronouns, half of these fantasies being carried out both by beelzebub and hastur, hastur uses she/her pronouns, ligur uses he/him pronouns, lngerie, michael uses they/them pronouns, sex in public, sort of: angels don't have blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 05:56:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20371807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KellerProcess/pseuds/KellerProcess
Summary: Gabriel wants one thing: for Beelzebub to dominate him. But he refuses to admit it. An angel cannot want such things... can they?Beelzebub and her dukes show him just how wrong he is--with a little help from a certain archangel.(Please heed the warnings in the tags.)





	1. Chapter 1

_Two Years after the Failed Apocalypse_

Gabriel had been doing a lot of staring out of heaven’s windows lately. 

It wasn’t best practice for an angel of his status. No, not at all. Especially when official duties now occupied so much of his time—just as they had for the last two years.

Since the apocalypse had been…thwarted by two beings whose names he would not think of, lest he forget he was an angel, heaven had had much to do to keep functioning in the orderly way it should. Simply keeping the angels occupied and in line now they no longer had Armageddon to prepare for had been a challenge no one could have foreseen. Worse, the archangels in heaven’s other branches across the globe personally blamed him for the apocalypse’s failure to materialize. Oh, they never _said _it in so many words, but suddenly they found the damndest things to harass head office about. Which, of course gave them what they wanted: making more paperwork for him and the three other archangels at this branch.

But that was probably his own fault. Gabriel had, after all, invented passive-aggressiveness.   
  
And oh, the paperwork had been endless. Thank the Almighty that Michael always managed to keep up with it, or he really might have—well, he wasn’t sure. But _something_ he would have regretted.  
  
Gabriel prided himself on being the calmest, most amiable archangel in heaven. Which he had to be, since he was technically—no, more than technically—its de-facto leader, aside from the rare occasion when Metatron gave him some unintelligible instructions. It was always better to solve things with a smile than with reprimand; to praise in public and criticize in private. To give an attaboy rather than a “you fucked up, now fix it.”

But lately, everyone was fucking up and _wouldn’t _fix it. And he was quickly running out of fucks to give. Today, in fact, he had shut himself in his office to keep Sandalphon from bringing him yet another miraclefax from an archangel who couldn’t shut up and lead their fucking people already. Because if he heard any more whining from anyone—anyone—

Well. He just might tell them to go to hell.

Which really was the worst thing an angel could say to anyone.

The fact that made Gabriel want to say it even more, troubled him. But what troubled him even more was the fact that it didn’t really trouble him.

If only he could just stop.

If only someone would just make him—

Make _it _stop.

Make it all stop so he could just stop dealing with all the things he just couldn’t anymore. Just _couldn’t_.   
  
No. He was the one who needed to stop. Stop right now. Because the thoughts he was having troubled him even more than the thought of telling perfectly nice angels to go fuck themselves and Fall. And the fact they didn’t trouble him but they should trouble him was just—

Yes. He had been staring aimlessly out of windows a lot lately. And it was no good.

Maybe he should take the afternoon off. Go down to Cork Street to see his tailor. He couldn’t remember when he’d last bought a new suit. A week? Maybe two weeks ago?  
  
Oh, definitely time for a new wardrobe.   
  
Just as Gabriel walked to the door to tell Michael he would be out for the rest of the day, his cellphone sounded from where he had left it on his desk.  


_Hey, Pretty_

_Don’t you wanna take a ride with me_

_Through my world—_

Gabriel reached it and tapped the Reject Call icon before he could hear the rest of that verse.

Why did she keep choosing ringtones that made him squirm more and more each day? And more importantly—

“How does she do it?” he asked the windows, shaking his head at them. “Hell hasn’t replaced its phone system in the last forty years, at least. So how can she keep hacking my phone to even give herself a ringtone?”

He was now talking to himself. Another bad sign, both by human and angel standards.  
  
“Well, isn’t it obvious? She’s the prince of hell. What can’t she do?”  
  
And now he was answering himself. An even worse sign!

The phone started up again.  


_Hey pretty_

_Don’t you wanna kick and slide_

_Through my w—_

  
He pressed the icon again, but less hard this time. And exactly five seconds later—

_Now I’ve got a mind full of wicked designs—_

“Fuck.” This was getting out of hand.   
  
Gabriel’s knuckle shook as he pressed the Answer icon. “_Yes?”_

He said it with a smile—somehow.   
  
“Well hello,” Beelzebub said, and judging from her tone of voice, she was also smiling—but with more confidence.

Gabriel sucked in a breath he didn’t need to take. 

“Listen, Prince Beelzebub. I’m very busy.” He pivoted slowly—slow movements kept you calm, after all—and paced along the line of windows his desk looked out upon. “We’re all very busy these days—”

“I’m not calling to distract you.” Her voice always managed to be both steel and gelignite, and always made him feel that he actually did need to take several breaths.  
  
“Then what—”

“I’m calling to ask what you’re wearing.”

If Gabriel had given his body a stomach, those words would have sent it spinning.

Somehow, they managed to do that to him anyway.   
  
“Um. A Gianni Feraud three-piece slim-fit wedding suit in baby blue. Linen blend. Shirt from Burberry, Paul Stuart Gallia wingtip oxfords. Brown.”

“Very nizzze. But then, you could make a J. C. Penny’s catalogue sound very nizzze, too, couldn’t you?”  
  
Gabriel closed his eye and swallowed a few times.

Steel. Gelignite. Razor edges. Sisal rope.

All the dark things of hell he was not supposed to think about.  
  
Gabriel had no ability to blush, but he was blushing anyway.

“Tell me more.”

He swallowed again.  
  
“I don’t have time for this,” he managed. “Speaking of clothing, I was heading out to my tailor. The usual one. Cork Street.”  
  
Speaking too long with the prince of hell was dangerous. Telling her more than she needed know, even more so.  
  
He didn’t care.

He just wanted to get a nice new suit. Get it tailored so it hung perfectly on his body. Hang up. Forget he’d had this conversation.  
  
“Well, then. I should let you get going, shouldn’t I?”  
  
It sounded like a threat.  
  
Only he didn’t feel threatened.  
  
“Yes. Thank you.”  
  
“No. Thank _you_.” And there was that smile again. It poured down the line like warm rain.  
  
He should know. He’d helped create that long before he’d created passive-aggression.  
  
“Yes. Goodbye.”  
  
But she’d already hung up.

All right, then.

Gabriel pocketed his phone and strode from his office.

“Gabriel.” Michael was also striding. Not away from heaven, but toward him. In their usual calm, poised manner—which Gabriel hadn’t, himself, felt in what seemed like forever.

“Michael.” He nodded to them.

“You look busy. I hope I’m not interrupting anything, but—”

“Yes?” He turned to them with a patient smile, trying to glide into and hold the proper pose an archangel should always keep: straight-backed, shoulders up, hands clasped at stomach level. But he was fidgeting. He could feel it in his knees and hips and thighs. His fingers twitched in their clench on each other.  
  
“I—well. It’s all right, really. It can wait until you get back,” Michael said gently. The usual soft, understanding look in their eyes was always backed by just a little bit of steel. Today it seemed just a little brighter than usual, but Gabriel couldn’t tell why.  
  
“Thank you,” he said with a smile, reaching out to gently clasp their shoulder. “It really is an important matter. On earth.”

Because if he didn’t get out of heaven as soon as he could, he was going to lose his control and—and—

Something would happen.  
  
Michael squeezed back and tilted their head with the slightest ghost of a smile. “Take care down there, won’t you? We miss you when you’re gone.”  
  
And before he could ask them what that meant, they were striding away with that elegant, princely gait.  
  
Michael had always been princely. Not like another prince he knew but—  
  
Yes. The tailor.  
  
Gabriel approached the wide globe spinning quiescently in the middle of heaven’s highest level—the only hint of color in the titanium-white space.  
  
Color… perhaps lavender this time. Or even a darker blue with a lime-green cravat and a subtle lavender vest.  
  
He’d always liked that combination. It was unusual, yet it looked so good together.  
  
As soon as Western Europe slid into view, he touched his index finger to the well-worn area that led to London and let heaven’s light carry him to earth.  
  
For some reason, he wondered if this was what it felt like to Fall.  


  
  



	2. Chapter 2

Severin’s was as close to a heavenly establishment as you could find in London—or anywhere on earth, really. The tidy little boutique was tucked away in a corner of Cork Street and was almost always empty.

It had been that way since its establishment in 1748.

Gabriel had no idea why. He hadn’t miracled this little shop into existence, nor had he miracled it to be so quiet and cozy. He also hadn’t miracled it to stay here when the tailors had all moved out and the art galleries had moved in. His archangels had insisted they weren’t responsible, and thanks to Michael’s meticulous record keeping, he knew no one from head office had been responsible, either.  
  
Still, he was grateful to the Almighty for whatever kept the shop exactly as he liked it.  
  
The bell over the door tinkled in a truly celestial tone as Gabriel walked into the shop—which also always smelled of fresh lavender and vanilla. Not that he enjoyed gross matter, but, well—smells were nice. And both of these were such purple smells.  
  
“Ah, Mr. Mann, hello!” the tailor greeted him with the last name he’d always used on earth.  
  
“Severin, good afternoon!” Gabriel returned the human’s warm and enthusiastic handshake and equally warm and enthusiastic smile. For some reason, no matter the decade, the proprietor was always named Severin and looked exactly the same: middle-aged, slightly rotund, blond hair graying at the temples, and some very unusual facial markings that looked a bit like scars, or dark birthmarks. His assistant always seemed to be named Davidson, too—and even he had the same vaguely middle-aged human look he always had.

Maybe the resemblances were a family thing? Human genetics were…complicated and confusing, so Gabriel didn’t spend much time on trying to parse them. Regardless, both were nice humans, and Severin was also a superlative tailor.

A superlative tailor who now stood back, looking Gabriel over.  
  
“Ah, a 1998 Feraud,” he said with a placid smile. “Normally, I’d accuse someone of being painfully out of style if they came in here wearing that. But on a body like yours, anything looks good.”  
  
“Thank you!” Gabriel made his smile even sunnier.

“Shall I help you pick out something for today, sir, or would you prefer to browse?”  
  
“Oh, browse, I think,” Gabriel said, looking around at the various racks of suit coats. He could practically feel his eyes dazzle. “But you have so many good outfits, it’s always just so hard to choose.” He turned back to Severin, who stood at his side, and clapped his hands together. “Okay, I’ll tell you what. If I need some help deciding, I’ll just”—he unclasped them and gestured toward the tailor. “Well, I’ll just give you or Davidson a holler. He’s around today, isn’t he?”  
  
“Yes, sir. And of course, sir. We are both always glad to help.” With a polite little bow that had something of the old world to it, the tailor shuffled off to the shop’s counter and its old-fashioned cash register. Gabriel watched him leave, then turned his attention back to the suits in lighter colors.  


Sometimes, he got the feeling that Severin—well, not just this one but several of the others—were fliting with him. He hadn’t noticed it until 1800 when Sandalphon had suggested that the frequency and intenseness of compliments Mr. Severin lavished upon him indicated more than just a display of polite but disinterested human respect.

As an angel, Gabriel could sense love quite easily. In his first years on earth, when humanity was new and still trying to learn how to live outside paradise, he had sensed it pouring from most of them in waves, a fact which hadn’t changed no matter how large the population grew or how often people found new and more effective ways to hurt each other.

But he was, to his endless puzzlement, unable to sense desire in them. Which probably explained why Sandalphon was forever pointing out when a human was attempting to do this flirting thing with him.

Ah well. It didn’t matter, he supposed as he walked his fingers over the material. He didn’t really think of anyone at all in terms of flirting.

_I’ve got a non-stop hole in my head_

_Imagination_

_I’m in a building that has two thousand floors—_

Gabriel froze with his fingertips brushing the shoulder of a merino-wool jacket.

But the phone kept buzzing in his pocket, and the ringtone kept ringing.

_And when they all fall down_

_I think you know it’s you they’re falling for_

Gabriel fumbled it from his pocket and pounded the Answer button. “_What?_” he hissed, looking over his shoulder. But Severin had vanished.  


Beelzebub merely snickered.  


Gabriel hung up, only to have it ring again in seconds.

_You add it up but to do better than that_

_You’ve got to follow me boy_

_I’m tryin’ to show you where I’m at—_

This time, Beelzebub was laughing.

A low-pitched, menacing cachinnation that curled fire all the way from his ears down to his toes.

And then, it cut off.

“Do you get the gist of this song now?” Beelzebub whispered.

The line went dead.

“Sir?”

Gabriel started and dropped the phone into his pocket, as if it were a guilty secret.

Davidson stood at his right, smiling serenely. “Sorry, sir. Didn’t mean to startle you. I was just wondering if you needed any help?”

Was it his imagination, or did something glitter in the man’s eyes?

Gabriel swallowed. No, he didn’t have an imagination.

Something was wrong.

He needed to get out of here now.  
  
The fire still curled through him, speeding the breaths he didn’t need to take. Faster. And faster.

He needed—What he _needed _was to get a new suit.   
  
Perhaps—yes. This one would do!

Gabriel snatched the dark blue suit from the rack and pushed it at Davidson.

“Here!” He forced his voice to obey him. “I mean. This one. I like it. I’d like it with a subtle lavender vest and a lime-green cravat. It looks good together, don’t you think?”

“Well”—Davidson looked a bit bewildered, but he still nodded. “Yeah—yes. Excellent choice, sir. If you’ll just head to the changing room and undress, we’ll come right back with the other parts to fit it.”

He needed to get a new suit.

He needed to get a new suit.

_He needed to get a new fucking suit._

If he didn’t get a new suit, then he wouldn’t get another opportunity to do this.  
  
Gabriel forced his shaking limbs to walk to the changing room, and to shut himself inside, leaving the door unlocked for the two.

The phone tumbled from his jacket pocket as he shrugged out of the garment. He didn’t bother picking either up as he started on the knot of his tie. When his fingers refused to open it, he cursed.  
  
“Aw, now, that’s not very nice language for an angel to be using,” a familiar voice said from the door.  
  
Gabriel could see Severin and Davidson in the mirror just fine. But he refused to believe the image. Instead he turned to see the real thing: the tailor and his assistant shifting into what they really were.

“Well, hello there,” Duke Hastur purred as the last vestiges of Severin’s smile disappeared into her own grin.

“Hi.” At her side, Ligur gave a little wiggle of his fingers.

Gabriel took a step backward. “You,” he snapped. “What do you want?”

“Oh, now, there’s no need to ask silly questions,” Ligur chided as he positioned himself in front of the only exit. “Hastur here, she doesn’t really like it when people ask silly questions, you see.”  
  
“Tends to piss me off,” Hastur said, fixing her black, amphibious eyes on him. “And believe me, archangel, you don’t want to see me when I’m pissed off.” Gabriel’s own eyes widened as she pulled a crowbar from behind her back and tapped the curve of its claw against her left palm.

“You—you’ve both—” Gabriel glanced around the room. “All these centuries, _you_ were the ones running—"

“That’s right,” Ligur said before his lips twisted into a smirk. “Surprised? You shouldn’t be. It was a great way to gather intelligence when you and that assistant of yours thought you were the safest. And let me tell you, we weren’t only gathering one kind of intelligence for the boss.” His smirk twisted further, into something obscene. “Hastur here loved getting her hands all over that nice body of yours. Especially when she had to take your inside-leg and seat measurements.”

The fire curling inside Gabriel now exploded across his cheeks. “What?” His voice was too quiet to be a shriek, but its high frequency technically made it one. He stared at Ligur. “You were seriously okay with that?”

“Yeah, why not?” Ligur shrugged. “It was just a bit of fun.” He smirked, wrapping an arm around Hastur’s waist. “You _are_ easy on the eyes, after all. And besides”—he gave Hastur a little squeeze. “I know who she really wants. Don’t I, baby?”

“Mh, yeah,” Hastur purred, inclining her head to kiss Ligur’s lips, slow, long, and deep, and punctuated with a desperate little moan. Gabriel’s breathing sped up as he watched, just as desperate.

They were blocking the doorway. He should probably try to escape, nonetheless.

But when Gabriel tried to dart around them, Hastur tore out of the kiss, driving him back with a swing of her crowbar.

Her laugh warbled like the pitch on a scratched record as she took a step toward him, slapping the crowbar into her left palm again and again as if it were the pendulum of an offbeat metronome. Lord, but she was hideous, Gabriel thought as he inched back. Everything about Hastur and her lover was ugly, twisted. If she touched him—  
  
Why was his heart racing when he had no heart to race?

And why wasn’t he just casting himself back into heaven?

“That’s right. I know who I want. Now, question is,” Hastur murmured as she approached him with the grace and subtlety of a rabid raccoon. “D’you know who wants _you_?”

Before Gabriel could answer, the crowbar connected with his solar plexus. Hastur snickered as he fell to his knees, gasping and clutching at the injury.  
  
“Well?” Ligur asked from behind him, and Gabriel cried out as his steel-toed boot slammed into Gabriel’s side. “Do you?”

“Mhhngh,” Gabriel tried to agree. “Y-you’re going to force me to say it, aren’t you?” he asked, looking up at Hastur in desperation.  
  
“Yeah, that’s right.” Hastur licked her chapped lips and ran the back of the claw along Gabriel’s cheek. “Because we’re not done up here ’til you do. You understand?”

“We’ve got orders,” Ligur echoed, nudging Gabriel’s rear with his toe. “And our orders are to keep you here ’til you admit it. Even if we’ve got to beat it out of you. So.” This time he shoved his foot against Gabriel’s rear, knocking him over onto hands and knees. “Why don’t you just say it so we can get on with it.”

“Or, you know,” Hastur murmured, running her crowbar through Gabriel’s hair. “You can keep crying and making excuses. Because I can do this all night.” She slid the claw of the weapon beneath his chin and gently pulled upward, until Gabriel was staring right into her shiny black eyes.  
  
“Say it!” she hissed. “Say it or I’ll beat your face in!”

“Fuck,” he wheezed, “oh, fuck.”

“Say it!” Hastur shouted, slamming him across the face with it.  
  
Gabriel’s vision swam. He tasted ichor in his mouth before spitting it out.  
  
“Beelzebub,” he gasped. “Beelzebub wants me.”  
  
“There, was that so hard?” Ligur murmured from behind him. “And what do you want, then, hmm?”  
  
“I…I can’t. I _can’t_—”  
  
“Aw, it’s no problem, love.” Hastur leaned in and ran her hand through his sweat-soaked hair. “That’s the reason we’re here, you know. You can’t because you’re a nice angel, who only wants nice things, and you _can’t_. No. Of course you can’t.”  
  
Gabriel trembled as she straightened up and raised the crowbar.  
  
“Do you get the gist of this song now?” she purred before slamming it across his face.

***

Gabriel lay in a sweaty, messy heap on the floor. His impeccable suit was torn in places and splattered with the angelic golden ichor that had spurted from the wounds on his face.

They’d heal fast enough, though, Ligur knew. On an angel of his rank? They’d be mere bruises by the time they got him where he needed to go—bruises all fit to be torn open again. He looked over at Hastur, who was wiping her crowbar down on one of the dressing room’s green velvet curtains.

“Hey now,” Ligur murmured when he caught her third nervous glance at Gabriel’s crumpled body. “What’s all this, baby?”

“It’s just—you don’t think I worked him over too hard, do you? The boss said subdue him, not, y’know—pulp him.”

And they both knew what happened when you displeased the boss.

“Nah, love.” Ligur gave her cheek a reassuring peck. “She knows how we work. Wouldn’t’ve sent us if she didn’t know exactly what you’d get up to.” He clasped Hastur’s left hand and kissed each knuckle slowly.

“Hmm, seems I’ve gotten you up too.”

“Oh no you don’t,” Ligur chided as Hastur dropped her weapon and reached for his groin. “We’ve got to finish what she’s started first. Oh, but then….” He cupped the mound between Hastur’s thighs. “Then I’m going to get you alone and show you just how much you’ve gotten me up today, you dirty girl.”  
  
He poked two fingers directly upward into that little nub of sensation and grinned as Hastur moaned.

Gabriel’s cell phone rang from its place beneath the archangel’s discarded jacket. Which was all right, Ligur decided, as he was half a second away from saying fuck it all and having Hastur right there against the wall.  
  
Ignoring his lover’s little grumble of disapproval, Ligur fished out the phone and grinned at the image on the screen.

“Since I’m not speaking to Gabriel, shall I assume that all has gone according to plan?”  
  
“You would assume correctly,” Ligur said with a smile.  
  
“Hello, Michael!” Hastur chirped as she miracled away her crowbar with a swipe of her fingers, just before raising the one in the middle.

Ligur snorted. “Hastur says fuck you.”

“In her own special way, I’m sure,” Michael said with a chuckle. Their tone became serious again. “Will you pass along a message to the prince?”  
  
“Oh, I think I can find my way into doing that.”  
  
“If he wonders—and he will—why we let this happen to him, tell her to say that he knows the answer to that, and that he isn’t Persephone.”

“I think you underestimate the boss sometimes.”  
  
“It isn’t underestimation. It’s understanding. Because—and I’m saying this with all due respect—she may start to feel like Hades, and that I’m Demeter. If she does, remind her that pomegranates aren’t exactly her weapon of choice.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Ligur?” she asked before he could hang up.  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“It’s good to have you back. And tell your girlfriend she can stop making rude gestures at me, because I’m ringing off now.”  
  
“She’ll be glad to hear it.”  
  
Michael chuckled again and the call ended.  
  
“So, Wank-wings say anything I’d give a blessing about?” Hastur asked as she encircled Ligur’s waist and pressed herself against his back.  
  
“Just that she can sense you flipping her off from the ninth circle.”  
  
“Ha-ha.” Hastur kissed his cheek. “Hm. Let’s get this shit over with, then, so I can put that finger somewhere else.”  
  
She didn’t have to tell Ligur twice.  



	3. Chapter 3

Gabriel’s eyes opened and closed intermittently. His senses did the same.

On and off. Off and on. Like hell’s ever-dying fluorescents.

His head hitting every step on the way down somewhere.

_Thunk!_  
  
“—fucking heavy bastard.”

_Thunk!_

“No, you’re just dragging him for fun, baby.”

_Thunk! Thunk!_  
“Course I am—hey! Who told you that you could wake up?”

A thunk that sent him into darkness again.  


A rattle of metal.  
  
“—should be a bit looser. Don’t want him distracted—”

Musty. Fetid.  
  
Definitely hell.

He opened a rapidly healing eye to confirm—just for a second.

A second too much.

“Fuck! How can he keep doing— You hit him this time, Ligur. Apparently my blows aren’t good enough for Archangel Fuckface here.”

This time, Gabriel saw entire galaxies as a fist slammed into his jaw.  
  


Fetid, grimy water.

The grossest of gross matter.

Gabriel wheezed and spat it from his mouth.

Kept wheezing as more hit him in the face.

“S-stop!” He tried to wipe it from his eyes, but his hands would only separate so far. His vision was more important, though, so he scrubbed at his eyes with the backs of his hands until it cleared.  
  
Hastur stood before him, holding a rusty bucket in her upraised hands.  
  
“Ah, there we go. When we don’t need him to come to, he does. When we do, he doesn’t.”

Gabriel tried to speak, only to get another face full of swamps and dark, wriggling things.  
  
Hastur’s unhinged giggle was just that—shrill and metallic, like the hinges of doors failing. “Wow,” she said, looking over the top of Gabriel’s head, presumably speaking to Ligur. “Seems this water came in handy after all. Guess I should’ve thanked Maintenance for not fixing that pipe, rather than incinerating one third of the entire department.”

She set the bucket back on the desk behind her as Gabriel finished disgorging the last of the water.

“All right, you can talk now,” she said as she leaned back against the desk and removed a cigarette from an inside pocket of her soiled trench coat (Gabriel tried and failed to ignore the golden ichor scattered across it like blood splatter.).

“Where—where am I?”

Ligur snorted from behind him as Hastur lit it with a sweep of hellfire from a finger. “First thing he asks, it’s the obvious, isn’t it? Where d’you think, mate? Disneyland?”

“I thought it was Disneyworld,” Hastur said with a frown before she seemed to remember what she was doing. “Anyway, stupid question. Can you ask us one that isn’t stupid, or should we get on with the show?”  
  
“What show?” Gabriel spluttered, wiping at his face with his bound hands again. For the first time, he looked down at them. The manacles were rusty and filthy, but held fast when he tugged at the chain between them. “Why am I wearing these? What are you doing?”

Why was his heart that wasn’t a heart thrashing even harder now?  
  
And why wasn’t it in fear? He was hemmed in by two of hell’s most vicious dukes, one of whom had just lit a cigarette with hellfire.

Hastur took a puff of said cigarette before pushing from the desk and blowing the smoke right into his face. Gabriel wheezed as his eyes burned. “All right. It’s so simple even an archangel as thick as you could understand, but I’ll explain. You see, Fuckface, you admitted that the boss wants you. And since you now know what we already knew, we decided to save you some trouble by bringing you to her.”  
  
She blew another cloud into his face.  
  
“S-stop that,” Gabriel hacked.   
  
Hastur looked over his head again. “It’s kind of cute how he thinks he’s in control here, isn’t it?”  
  
“Yeah, just a little.” Gabriel shuddered as Ligur’s hands slapped down on his shoulders and squeezed. “Oh, by the way. Try moving your ankles. We’ve got those taken care of too.”  
  
As Gabriel inched a foot forward, a length of chain clattered across the stone floor in confirmation.

“There, you see? All locked up with nowhere to go. Just like the boss wants.”  
  
“What—why would she—”

“Q and A’s over now.” Hastur dismissed him with a wave. “Darling, I think it’s time to wrap our little gift, don’t you?”  
  
Gabriel screamed as a sack came down over his face.  
  
“Shh, shh, shhh,” Hastur shushed before choking him with a blast of smoke again. “You go to the boss wailing like that, she’s libel to do much worse than what we did. But I get the feeling you’d like that, huh?”  
  
Gabriel’s cries cut off like a door slamming. Because he felt like one had opened for him inside.  
  
“Hm. Right,” Hastur drawled, and Gabriel screamed again as she extinguished her cigarette against his left hand. “Okay, love, let’s make our delivery. Satan knows we’ve got better things to do today. Of course—” Gabriel cried out as she ground the butt harder into the burn. “—Prince Beelzebub’s got something better to_ do_ today than keep waiting, too.”  
  
Ligur grabbed Gabriel around the waist and yanked him onto his feet, and Hastur grabbed the chain between his manacles.  
  
“Walk,” she snapped. “And if you fall, well, we dragged you all the way down to hell. What’s a little more dragging to get to the throne room?”  
  
Gabriel’s hands shook as he stumbled along after Hastur, who snarled insults every few feet before yanking on the chain again. He could feel ichor dripping from his wrists, but by now, he could hardly care.  
  
He was being taken to Beelzebub’s throne room.  
  
And he didn’t know what she would do to him.  
  
And he didn’t dare imagine.

Imagining would be too much.

And he would have too much, too soon.  



	4. Chapter 4

Though it would soon be filled wall-to-wall with all of head office’s nonessential personnel, the great throne room was empty now—and unusually silent.

If not for the flies buzzing around her head, Beelzebub suspected she would’ve been able to hear the screams from all the way down in the ninth circle.

Beelzebub huffed out a breath. She did not like this. No, she did not like this at all.

“Dagon”—she turned her head toward the demon at her left—“what if he—”

“No.” Her principal secretary shook her head, holding up a scaly hand. “That’s the answer I gave you three minutes ago. And five minutes before that. And one minute before that. I’m as loyal a subject as you’ll ever find, but I’m not indulging this question anymore, boss.”  
  
Beelzebub shook her head. “Now I really regret giving you the title mazzzter of tormentz—torment_s_. You’re too blessed good at it. All of it. _Fuck _this.” She slammed her hands down on the armrests and hopped from the throne. “They should’ve been here by now,” she said as she began pacing. “What the _heaven _are they doing? If they’re fucking in a clozz—in a maintenance closet somewhere—”

“Well, you did tell them to give him a thorough working over. And Hastur likes to take her time.”

Well, Beelzebub didn’t have to like it. But Dagon, bless her, was right. She forced herself to slouch back down onto her throne. “I didn’t ask, though,” she said, turning to Dagon again. “None of uzzz did. I’m not—you know? We sense what’z there. With humanzz, I mean. It’s easy. It’s obvious what they won’t admit. We stick a pin in it. Poke at it. Nudge it. It’s like a rotting tooth. Eventually they feel it. Eventually they act. Even the strongest of them act. Angels?” She shook her head. “How the fuck do they work?”  
  
“The same, I imagine.” Dagon rested a hand against her shoulder. Squeezed. “Boss, how long have you been rivals?”

“You know how long.”  
  
“And colleagues?”  
  
“We don’t speak of that.”  
  
“And how long have you had Hastur and Ligur running surveillance at that tailor’s?”  
  
“Or that.” It was one thing for her dukes to tell her about everything Gabriel and Sandalphon said, or about every intimate detail of Gabriel’ body.  
  
Quite another for Hastur to tell her just how firm his ass was, or how impressed she was at the cock Gabriel grew to better fit in with humans when he stripped down to his underwear.  
  
Ah, but Hastur hadn’t seen any more than that, now had she?

And if all went well, she never would.

“Well,” Dagon said sagely, “you and he are going to be speaking about a lot of things after today, no matter what happens. So you should practice a bit first, don’t you think?”  


That was another thing to hold against Dagon. She was always right.  
  
“If I don’t sense it on him, it’s over,” she said. “I’m not going to— Satan’s sake, Dagon!”

“I know that, boss.” Her hand squeezed Beelzebub’s shoulder again. “Ten thousand years, he knows that too. You’re the only one who doesn’t seem to know that.”  
  
Beelzebub closed her eyes and nodded.  
  
_I’m the prince of hell. He’s the first archangel among equals. I’m going to show him that. What I am, and what he isn’t. And then he’s going to do what I say._  
  


When she opened them, Hastur was kneeling before her. And Beelzebub’s lips sprang into a smile like a behemoth loosed from its chains.  
  
_I am the prince of hell._  
  
“Glad you could stop jilling off long enough to report to me,” she snapped as she straightened up on her throne. “Is he ready?”

“Yes, Your Lowness.” Hastur bowed her head, and Beelzebub’s smile sharpened even more. That’s right. She was the only one in hell who could make this rabid bitch defer.

“Well, then. What the heaven are you waiting for, a commendation? Get him ready for his entrance.”  
  
“Yes, Your Lowness.”  
  
“Dagon!” she snapped as Hastur skulked way.  
  
“My lord.”   
  
“Tell the ushers to open the doors and let everyone in.” Beelzebub slid to the edge of her throne and perched there. As her flies buzzed in anticipation, she rubbed her hands together.  
  
Hell’s legions had been bored and restless since the war had been cancelled.  
  
And what better way to keep them in line than to put on a show?  



	5. Chapter 5

Hell’s hallways were dark and indistinguishable, especially when he couldn’t see anything through the black material—sackcloth, if he wasn’t mistaken.

Horrible, coarse. The worst fabric humans had ever invented. But not exactly suffocating. Not to an angel who didn’t need to breathe.

He let himself gasp for breath anyway.

He had some idea where Hastur and Ligur were taking him.   
  
“Fuck,” Hastur snapped when Gabriel collided with her back for the third time. “Do that again, I’ll split your lip. Then what’ll you do?”

Gabriel hung back after that.

When he heard the murmurs, his breathing sped up even more.  
  
When the murmurs turned into silence, it stopped completely.

The first catcall made him flinch back, right into a shove from Ligur that landed him in Hastur’s grip.  
  
“Welcome to hell.” Her breath was hot and foul enough to pierce the fabric. “Do enjoy your stay. It’s going to be a long one.”  
  
She spun him and hurled him forward, yanking the sackcloth away as he passed.  
  
The stone floor muffled Gabriel’s shout as his entire body exploded with pain against it.  
  
“Up!” Ligur ordered. Two hands dragged him to his knees as the aftershocks rattled him. A hand in his hair—he didn’t know whose—yanked his head up and forced him to look forward.  
  
And Gabriel forgot.  
  
He forgot the dukes pinning him in place.  
  
He forgot the pain still rippling through his body.  
  
He forgot he was on his knees in hell.  
  
He forgot, but just for a moment, even that he was an archangel.  
  
Beelzebub was seated before him, her back straight, legs crossed at the knee. The dull medals on her jacket gleaming in hell’s half-light.  
  
And her face—

Oh, God, her face.  
  
Scorched and steely and oh so handsome.  
  
_Beelzebub. She wants me._  
  
His hearing returned, as did the sensation of countless eyes upon him. And a room exploding in voices—speculation, whispers, shouts, wolf-whistles—

“Quiet!” Beelzebub thundered, slamming a fist against one of the chair’s armrests.  
  
The noise snapped off instantly.

“Duke Hastur. Duke Ligur. I see you have a very interesting deed to recount today.” Beelzebub looked from one to the other. “Tell uzzz.”  
  
“Your Lowness,” Ligur spoke, and Gabriel could tell from the shuffling of feet that he and Hastur had turned to face their audience. “As you know, all has not been well in heaven since our—unfortunate ceasefire. Our operatives have learned that the archangels have been questioning its leadership.”  
  
Gabriel’s eyes widened. Could this be true?  
  
“Seems they don’t want him around anymore,” Ligur continued. “Seems they think Michael would do a better job. But how d’you disappear an angel, Your Lowness? Especially one so high-ranked they can’t help but be missed.”  
  
“Simple,” Hastur chimed in. “You call us. And just like that”—she snapped her fingers. “Problem solved. Both our problems.”  
  
Gabriel kept his gaze fixed on Beelzebub. Her flies circled her head as she looked forward, presumably at her dukes. Or anywhere that wasn’t at him.

“Yezzz,” Beelzebub said. “And heaven has just given itself another problem,” she continued, standing to address the crowd. “Michael may have the brains their superior—well—” She flicked her gaze to Gabriel, and the hunger that flickered across it sent a very different kind of pain through his body. “Former superior lacks, but they’ve already made a mizzztake.” She turned back to the assembly. “Heaven isn’t stupid. Heaven notices. And then heaven spies. And soon enough, heaven will find out exactly what Michael did to their rival. And exactly what we’re doing to them.” She rubbed her hands together.  
  
“We may not have gotten Armageddon, my friends. And I was as disappointed as any of you. But we were patient. And we waited. And we watched. And now, we’ve been rewarded with something even better.” Her lips parted in a truly demonic smile. “Civil war in heaven.”  
  
Applause and cheers rained down like fire and brimstone. When Gabriel tried to turn his head to the right—to tell if the dukes were serious—Hastur swooped down and cuffed his ear before forcing him to face the throne again.  
  
“The prince is talking,” she hissed. “And you’re going to listen to every word she says, like a good boy.”  
  
Gabriel wanted to let those words slide through him, but he couldn’t.   
  
Civil war. Was this entire thing about—

Was it all a lie?  
  
He tried to surge to his feet. To do—something. Wrap the chain between his manacles around Hastur’s neck and choke her to discorporation before running—

He had to be able to run somewhere. He had to warn them.  
  
He should never have thought—

Beelzebub’s left hand snapped up, and silence came down like a hammer.  
  
“Your deed has rendered us a great service today,” she said, turning her attention to her dukes. “And you will be commended appropriately—later. For now, you are dismissed.”  
  
Gabriel didn’t even think to put up a fight as the dukes slunk away into the darkness.  
  
The cacophony resumed as Gabriel peered out into the darkness. But it was nothing like the cacophony in his head.

Ten million demons, angry at being denied a war, and desperate to start one.

Would a heaven divided stand any chance?  


Beelzebub’s hand was warm in the small of his back, and his thoughts cleared like mist.  
  
“You don’t think Michael can handle the risk?” she whispered, trailing her palm down his spine, making his six wings shiver to break free. “They knew what they were doing in giving you to me; they know how to take what they want. And I think you know that—and by now, what that meanzzz. You can’t deny it anymore. The desire is rolling off you in waves. I could sense it from the other side of the galaxy.”  
  
“Yes,” Gabriel whispered.

Her hand caressed the expanse between his scapulae. “Scream, cry, beg. Tell me ‘no’ and ‘stop.’ But it won’t stop. Not unless you say, ‘Enough.’ You understand?”  
  
Gabriel could have sobbed, both from relief and from the warmth of her palm. Instead he murmured, “Yes.”  
  
“Good.”   


Beelzebub spun him to face the crowd, as if he were a top.  
  
This time, she didn’t need to raise a hand to quiet them. Shoving him to his knees sufficed.   
  
“Hell has had many enemies in heaven since the Fall,” Beelzebub announced, pacing around him, her blue eyes locked with his. “But I’ve never wanted to humiliate one of them so badly. All of that self-righteousness. All of these expensive clothes, all while he chides us for gluttony and luxury.”  
  
She ended her circling as she stepped behind him. “Well, I’m going to strip him of that hypocrisy now.”  
  
As she fisted her hands in the back of his shirt, she whispered, “Grow something between your legs if you haven’t already.”

Only he didn’t need to. He’d felt the erection coming on ever since Hastur had started hitting him, he realized then. But he hadn’t noticed.  
  
He hadn’t noticed because Hastur had no right to it.  
  
He didn’t fight it anymore.

“Mh,” Beelzebub murmured against his earlobe. “Excellent choice.”  
  
The cotton gave way like tissue paper beneath her fingernails.

Either the catcalls or the sudden chill of the room had his nipples pebbling. But he only began moaning when Beelzebub’s finger pads teased them in slow circles.  
  
“Gluttony_ and_ lust,” she announced. “What a disgusting angel.”  
  
His tie pulled taut as she walked to his side, and he realized exactly what he was doing, and he followed, easing up onto his feet.  
  
No one would notice or care about socks and shoes—or the manacles around his ankles. The fact Beelzebub had miracled them away by now showed that she agreed.  
  
His trousers, on the other hand.  
  
The crowd roared as she released his tie and slid her hands down his chest toward his fly.  
  
“No,” Gabriel sobbed then. “Stop, please. Please, I can’t—don’t make me— Please don’t. Please, not this.” 

The slap turned his head, and the force of it hardened him even more.  
  
When his pants shredded away, baring his legs. Gabriel’s hands flew to his groin as his jaw trembled.  
  
No, he would not cry in front of them. He would not. Not even when Beelzebub slapped his ass and tore his briefs away too, leaving only his hands to cover his modesty.  
  
She circled him again, her gaze undressing him even further, like a thousand hands.  
  
Stripping him bare, right down to his desires.  
  
And then she bared him completely by grabbing the chain between his wrists and yanking them to the side.  
  
Hellfire could not have matched the heat of his face as she exposed him to hell’s hungry eyes.  
  
“Zzzzzooo modest,” Beelzebub hummed as she reached around a hip. The crowd went wild as she slapped his cock. “But look at him now. No better than an incubus, are you? No, not like an incubus, I think. To them, it’s only a job. But for you, it’s a secret, isn’t it? Or—it was.”  
  
Gabriel sobbed harder as she squeezed his balls and rolled them in her palm.   
  
“Yezzz, that’s right,” she sneered. “You love it—because you deserve it. And you know you do.” Only she was speaking to him now and had been for some time. The crowd had lost all semblance of order.   
  
“And you know what I’m going to do.”  
  
“No,” he cried. “No, please—please don’t. Please don’t take that too.”  
  
But Beelzebub had already forced him back to his knees by tugging on his tie. And Gabriel bowed his head in shame and defeat as her warm hands cupped his ass and pulled it open, exposing him to her.  
  
“No,” she growled as she circled a finger around his pucker, relaxing it, slicking it with something warm and wet. “You look at them. You raise your head and you look at them. You let them see just how much I’m breaking you. How much you hate it. How powerless you are to stop it. And then, you let them watch you come apart. You let them see who you belong to now—who you’ve always belonged to. Isn’t that right?”  
  
“Yes.” It came out as broken whimper.

“That’s right. And then you spread your wings—just the first pair will do—and let me chain them too.”   
  
Gabriel was beyond speech now. And when Beelzebub pushed her cock inside him, he didn’t need to wait. The topmost pair of his wings unfurled and beat against the stone floor of the dais in counterpoint to Beelzebub’s thrusts. The deeper and harder she took him, the harder he sobbed and begged for her.  
  
No.  
  
Stop.  
  
Please.

Don’t.  
  
Please.  
  
But not “enough.”  
  
Nothing could ever be enough.

And all the while, he stared into the crowd, letting them know he was humiliated.  
  
Broken.  
  
Shattered.  
  
Hers.  
  
She could have fucked him for hours, or maybe only a few minutes, but when she came inside him with a roar of triumph, Gabriel came too, spilling out all over his thighs and then the floor as tears poured down his cheeks.  
  
Hers.  
  
Beelzebub withdrew as he slumped to the floor. Come dribbled from him as she stood, no doubt after tucking herself away. His spinning brain barely registered the clamps biting into the flesh beneath his coverts, pulling his wings back and together like hands at prayer.

The applause nearly made him pass out.  
  
“All right,” Beelzebub said as it died down. “That’s enough for now. We’ve all got jobs to do, including me. But they can wait until tomorrow. Just remember: you break it, you fix it.”  
  
And with that, she grabbed the chain between Gabriel’s wrists and tugged him from the dais and through a door at the back of the room.  
  
Thighs dripping with their mingled come, he stumbled away from who he’d been, toward who he’d always been.


	6. Chapter 6

Gabriel couldn’t remember how he’d gotten into bed. How his chains had been removed and his wings unlocked. He could only remember the whisper of a blanket cocooning him and a warm body pulling him close. It smelled like Beelzebub—like spice and brimstone and all the forbidden things of hell. He had tucked his head against her neck and let himself drift.

She was still there when the fog lifted.  
  
“Shhh,” Beelzebub soothed. “You’re mine.”  
  
He drifted again.  
  
***

Beelzebub’s suites seemed to occupy an entire floor, Gabriel thought as he studied the room where he lay, still tucked into bed. Shabby, of course—wasn’t everything in hell?—but clean in an imperfect way, where one didn’t think at all about dusting or straightening the pictures, but at least they got most of the mess up from the carpet. Red velvet curtains on the four-post bed. Polished, if scraped-up, walnut wood furniture—an armoire and even a roll-top desk. Tapestries on the walls, depicting—well, not angels or demons, which was interesting, but faded baroque landscapes.

No touch of white anywhere.

Even her chambers were princely. Stylish.  
  
He’d never thought about a room being fashionable.  
  
“Hello there.”  
  
Gabriel turned his head to find her lounging a few feet away at a spindly table. A chess set took up the entire surface, lacking only a few red pawns and one black.  
  
Not even it had a trace of white.  
  
His gaze turned back to her when she cleared her throat.  
  
“I got it especially so we could play. But you seem more interested in it than you are in me.”

Her frown was playful, but he chose a serious response nonetheless. “That wouldn’t be possible.”  
  
Beelzebub smirked. “Did you sleep well?”  
  
“I slept?”  
  
She nodded. “You spent a star’s worth of energy out there, Gabriel. Even an angel needs to rest from that.” She rose from her chair and walked toward him. She wore a black, loose-fitting, ruffled shirt, half-tucked into black fall-front trousers. And, of course, a cravat made of mesh.

“Felt good, didn’t it?”   
  
What had they been talking about? “I-I don’t think I’ve ever seen you—”

“Out of uniform?” Beelzebub turned slowly to let him take in her outfit. “Do you like it?”  
  
“I liked everything about the eighteenth century—well, fashion-wise, I mean.”  
  
Beelzebub chuckled as she closed the distance between them. The mattress barely dipped as she joined him in bed. “Really, now, how do you feel?”   
  
Gabriel flexed his limbs beneath the blanket. “I’m not used to paying so much attention to a corporeal body, but—nothing seems to be wrong.”

“Good.” A glass of water appeared in her hand. She held it out to him. “Drink,” she prompted when he merely stared at her.  
  
“I don’t—”

“Consume matter.” Beelzebub rocked her head from side to side, rolling her eyes. “Yes, so you’ve said a thousand times. This decade. But most demonzz do. _I _certainly do.”

The prince of hell served a dual role in this realm: she was also the master of the sin of gluttony. Her sumptuous quarters, dingy as they were, alone would have indicated that. The fact she loved eating and drinking went without saying.  
  
“And that means you want me to consume it.” That you’ll insist I consume it.

“Hm. You shudder, but you’re curious.” Beelzebub held the water out to him again. “And you need it. Go on, it’s not so bad.” She winked at him. “I can hold you while you do it, if you like.”

No, he shouldn’t like. He shouldn’t like at all.

When Gabriel wriggled from his cocoon, she handed him the glass and held out her arms. He sank into them.  
  
The water was clear, cool, but—

“It’s … rough?” Gabriel examined the glass, and took another sip. “It isn’t … well. I don’t want to spit it out. Not like that water your duke threw on me.” He shuddered as he remembered its taste and smell—dampness, rot, all the things about hell he didn’t—

Well, “didn’t like” was one thing. “Wanted to avoid” was another. “Feared” another thing still.

Beelzebub sighed. “She’zzz been a real pain in the arse about a leaking pipe over her desk.” Her tone was almost apologetic. “This isn’t from that pipe.”  
  
“No.” Gabriel sipped again. “Rough….”  
  
“Tell me more.”  
  
Not having ever consumed water, he couldn’t. But then he caught the smell of it.  
  
“Soil,” he confirmed, “after rain.” He took a deep sniff. “Copper? Copper. But not humming with power; copper when it’s at rest, in the soil.”  
  
“More?”  
  
He shivered as Beelzebub’s fingers traced his solar plexus. “Yes, something more. Caverns. Deepness. Chill.”  
  
“Mhh, good. Very good. Finish it now.”  
  
Gabriel complied, and she miracle the glass away.  
  
“You’re going to eat matter next.”

“No.” His response was immediate, definite. Water was one thing—they had that in heaven, though it was not for drinking. This “food,” however—

“It’s not that much different. Just solid, and usually with a stronger tazzzte.” Beelzebub held out her hand, and a small, red plate with several brown and black mounds swirled into being.

  
“Chocolates?” Gabriel knew that much about them, having seen—well, the angel he was definitely not going to think about right now, eating them. On far more than one occasion.

“Try one.”   
  
It wasn’t an order. It didn’t need to be.  
  
Gabriel’s finger trembled as he ran it along the surface of several mounds. When Beelzebub didn’t prod at him to just decide already, he lifted one of the dark ones to his nose.  
  
“Trees,” he confirmed. “Soil again. Sunlight.” He sniffed it again. “Heat.”  
  
“Mh-hm. Very good. Bite it.”  
  
Gabriel did, and once again, he didn’t concentrate on the strange sensations inside his mouth. Rather, he kept smelling.  
  
More sunlight. The bite of crenelated seeds. The spongey side of pitted zest.  
  
When he told her, she explained it was called lemon. Then asked him to finish the plate.  
  
Raspberry. Strawberry. Amaretto. Rum. Sea salt and caramel. He liked that one the best.  
  
“Very good. How do you feel?” she asked as the plate swirled into nonexistence.

“Strange,” he admitted.

She shifted beneath him to pull him closer. As she ran her hand through his messy hair, Gabriel closed his eyes.  
  
Naked. Disheveled. Humiliated. Fucked wide open before an entire office of jeering demons.

He should have felt debased. Fallen, even.  


Fallen…  
  
“When you tense up like that, I can tell you’re thinking,” Beelzebub said. “Stop that.”  
  
Gabriel shook his head, even as he turned and pressed it against the slight rise of her breasts.   
  
“What? You think you’ll Fall for eating chocolate?” Her laugh wasn’t unkind, more surprised. “You know that isn’t true.”  
  
“It isn’t that.”  
  
“What happened before the chocolate?”  
  
Gabriel nodded. Then abruptly shook his head.   
  
“What happened before that happened.”   
  
She didn’t prompt him, but her fingers continued to move in a widening gyre.  
  
Since his creation, he had resisted … everything an angel could resist. Should resist. Water. Chocolates. Humans, unless speaking to them was completely unavoidable. Certainly sex with them—no, that was absolutely forbidden. Sleep. Frivolous amusements.  
  
He looked down at his bare chest.  
  
But not clothing. No, he’d taken to fabric right after its invention. The way a toga draped and the way sandals laddered up his calves; the comfort of the comfort of hosiery and the softness of velvet. The elegance of breeches and frock coats; the cut of the modern suit as it changed from decade to decade. Even bellbottoms had been exciting! Not to mention shoulder pads, though they hadn’t looked the best on the form he—

How much of it did he have in his space in heaven? Thousands of outfits, thousands of years’ worth. Many he hadn’t worn in centuries, even for nostalgia’s sake—or to reminisce with Sandalphon about where and when they procured it.   
  
What was that, if not gluttony?  
  
And why hadn’t he Fallen for it?   
  
More than that; why did he like this particular human comfort so much? It was certainly not necessary for an angel to own a single piece of it.  
  
_It covers me._

No. That wasn’t right.

_It provides me cover._

Gabriel sucked in a breath and held it.  
  
What he said next would be, possibly, the most important thing he’d ever say to any celestial or infernal being.

“I’m not somewhere I don’t want to be.”  
  
Beelzebub remained silent, her fingers stilling now to soft little brushes, as if she were simply reminding him that she was here—that she would stay here.  
  
That she would let him answer, because she couldn’t answer for him, could she?  
  
Maybe that was where he’d started to go wrong. Not just he himself, but perhaps everyone.  
  
“I’m not somewhere I don’t want to be. I don’t hate the work I do. Humanity is made of love. I can’t help but be drawn to that, Beelzebub, even if I don’t understand it—or them. I don’t hate my work, or what we do upstairs. I don’t hate miracles, or Her plans, or Her. But I don’t understand them. And I don’t really understand what I’m doing up there.”  
  
Her chin brushed the crown of his head as she nodded. But that was all the help she offered.  
  
It was all he needed.  
  
“And I hate it. I hate how I hate it even more than I did before—before everything went to he— Sorry. Before everything all went wrong. I don’t like it when I open a file and there’s missing paperwork. Lately I feel like I’m missing an entire filing department.” He peered over his shoulder at her. “Is that how you feel?”  
  
“I don’t have the answers you’re looking for, Gabriel, but I do know something you may not know. You can find them—and maybe you already have.”  
  
He had. He could feel them between his ribs—all those dark places in his corporeal bones he’d tried to ignore. But one couldn’t ignore them, not within a body.  
  
Not even when one didn’t have a body.  
  
“I liked being hit. Not by Hastur—not…in that way, with that particular person, I mean. Not necessarily that. But I liked being hit, and dragged down here. I liked… I liked what you did to me.”  
  
“You did.”  
  
“I liked.” He swallowed. “I liked being undressed. Exposed. Displayed. Consumed.”  
  
“Like a chocolate.”  
  
Gabriel nodded. “I should feel debased. Abused. Ashamed of myself. Disgusting. _Fallen_.” He looked up at her again. “But I’ve never felt so powerful. So…honest.”  
  
And now that he’d said the word, he wondered why he never had. Why even thinking it had felt—

Well.

As impossible as waking up in the prince of hell’s arms.

“And isn’t truth an angel’s highest value?” said prince asked.  
  
“Well. One of them. But I think you know the others.” He turned in her arms to face her, leaning on his hands to hold him up. “I think you may even know which one I mean.”   
  
“Tell me.”  
  
Gabriel leaned in close and pressed a kiss to her lips. First one kiss, then another, then a third.  


“Mhh. Yes, I do see. And I do want to, but not tonight, pet.” Beelzebub cradled his face in her hands and pressed her forehead to his. “You’ve had a long day, and you’ll have a lot of long days. And a lot to think about…especially with what we’ll be doing tomorrow.”  
  
“I will?”  
  
“Tomorrow, I’m giving you something to wear that will make you feel even more undressed and displayed.”  
  
Gabriel’s cock stirred slightly. But she was right. It had been a long day, and he was feeling that dragging, slow feeling again.   
  
“I think I must be going to sleep again.”  
  
“Sleepy.” She kissed his forehead and eased him to the mattress with her. “That’s the word for it.” She pressed his lips to his. “I’m proud of you, you know. For telling it. Not just out there, when you begged for me, but in here. But mostly, to yourself.”

Her lips against his were far more refreshing than any water could have been.

They tasted like the humming of the star inside of him that had needed to be refreshed.  
  
They tasted like lemon and chocolate and rich soil and sunlight and copper, only this time with the energy humming through its molecules.  
  
“Now, the question is: have you had enough?”  
  
When she smiled against his lips, Gabriel kissed them again. “I don’t think I ever can.”


	7. Chapter 7

Beelzebub settled on her throne as Gabriel sank to his knees at her right, wearing nothing but manacles—on wrists, ankles, and the one set of wings Beelzebub permitted him to display. She had also miracled up a leather collar that locked firmly about his neck—a pale blue, and attached to a chain which Beelzebub had wrapped around her right hand.

Well, and one other thing. She had given him a pale and nearly transparent lavender G-string to wear today. It revealed almost more than it concealed—which, of course, was the entire point.  
  
His humiliation and debasement before the court of hell had only just begun; the blush across his face, and across his exposed rear from where she had turned him over her knees this morning, showed that well enough.  
  
He wished he could cover his cock with his hands, but Beelzebub had forbidden it—on pain of yanking his leash.  
  
“A horrible morning to you all.” Beelzebub crossed her legs at the knee and yanked on Gabriel’s lead to make him bow his head again. “Because you’re all wondering, yes, he’s going to be here every day, and yes, he’s going to be here like that. Maybe wearing even less if I feel like it. So take a good long look, then put your envy and covetousness somewhere useful, and we might get something done around here.”   
  
Gabriel raised his eyes just enough to watch her take the decrepit binder from Dagon, who stood at her left.  
  
“Right, then.” Beelzebub opened it on her lap and paged through it. “Naamah.”  
  
“Your Lowness.”  
  
“Fornication is down among millennials. Again. That’s the third month in a row, and it’s all coming from America. Get over there and tell Archduke Mammon to get his shit together. Greed is good—which we _all _know, because he never shuts the fuck up about it—but that doesn’t mean he gets to steal from the lust budget to pay for it. And tell him I’m not buying this ‘but it’s not my fault, Lowness! Internet pornography is killing everyone’s sex drive’ shit, either.”  
  
“Yes, Your Lowness.”

Beelzebub dismissed the succubus with a flick of her hand. “Dukes Hastur and Ligur.”  
  
“Your Lowness,” Ligur said.

“Maintenance has asked me to remind you two, yet again, that broom closets are not your personal sex dungeons. That also goes for supply cabinets, boiler rooms and—” She blinked and held the binder closer to her face. “And airducts, apparently.”  
  
One of them snorted and quickly disguised it with a cough.  
  
“Now, I don’t know how you even got in there, or why, and to be honest, I hope I never find out, but the next time it happens, and I quote, ‘We will personally shove your fingers down the nearest paper shredder with you still attached to them, then make you eat them while we find new ways to aspirate—” She read in stoic silence for a moment. “Hm. I have no idea how you’d do that with hand sanitizer and caulking, but I’m guessing it means they’re not best pleased that you discorporated a third of them over a leaky pipe, Hastur.” She turned a page. “And it seems reception isn’t exactly happy with you, either. Something about heretofore-unknown ways of abusing a laminator.” She waved her hand at them. “Go on. You already know your orders. And Satan help you if you lose another high-profile target because you’re fucking in a landfill, or whatever the heav—” She cleared her throat. “The fuck it is you do up there on the clock.”   
  
“Yes, Your Lowness.” Hastur sounded serious, but the stench of a lit cigarette followed her and her lover from the room.  
  
“If I didn’t personally understand how they felt about each other,” Beelzebub murmured to Dagon, “I’d definitely be more than annoyed.”

The blush that spiked through Gabriel’s body in response to those words had nothing to do with humiliation. As if she could sense it, Beelzebub whipped her gaze toward him.  
  
“Who told you to look up?” she snapped, yanking on his lead.  
  
Gabriel kept his head bowed for the rest of the meeting—well, mostly. At least, Beelzebub only tugged on the chain two more times.

Only after the throne-room door shut behind the last demon did he dare actually raise his head.

“Anything else, boss?” Dagon asked. “Aside from me holding all your calls, cancelling your appointments, and telling everyone to leave you alone unless—”

“Unless holy water is dripping from the ceiling. And then send maintenance first.”  
  
“I’ll be sure to do that.” With a nod to both of them, she headed for the stairs.  
  
“Dagon?”  
  
“Hm?” As she turned back to look at them, Beelzebub gave her a flicker of a smile.  
  
“Thank you.”  


Dagon’s ghost-blue eyes widened before a smile perked up her own lips. “Sure thing, boss. You know, I think he suits you.” She turned them on Gabriel. “You keep spreading your legs for her, I’m liable to get an entire compliment—one of these days.”  
  
“I take it back, you’re a menace,” Beelzebub snapped, though her tone didn’t match her words. “Don’t you have three-hole punches to stick legionnaires’ hands in or something?”  
  
Dagon was still smirking as she exited the throne room, leaving one of the great doors in the back wide open.  
  
Beelzebub sagged back in her throne with a heavy sigh. “There, you see?” she asked, turning to Gabriel as she twirled her hand in the air. “You see what I have to put up with down here? Lippy secretaries. Leaky pipes. Millennials ruining the STD industry. My dukes marking their territory everywhere. Oh stop that,” she snarled as Gabriel bit his lower lip to hold in a chuckle. “As if you ever had so much as a pipe burst Upstairs.” She pointed toward the ceiling.  
  
She turned back to him when Gabriel’s laughter cut off. “Look, I didn’t mean—”

“No, it’s all right.” Gabriel’s manacles clanked against the floor and his flesh as he settled back onto his calves. “You’re right. We never really did. And I have a lot to learn about the place where I’m living now.”  
  
Living. Truly living.

“Mh-hm. And you should probably start by learning that the door is open.”  
  
Oh, he’d noticed. But Gabriel peered over his shoulder at it anyway before turning back to her. “Yes, B—”  
  
She held up her hand and shook her head.  
  
“Um. Your Lown—”

Another headshake.  
  
“_Prince_ Beelzebub, then?”  
  
“When you are in here, you are serving me. When we are anyplace in hell, you are serving me. My bound angel. My war prize. I am, therefore, not Beelzebub, Your Lowness, or even Prince. I am your Master, and you are my servant. Is that enough for you?”  
  
Gabriel shook his head. “No. It is definitely not enough.”  
  
Beelzebub nodded. “And being my servant means just what I said this morning. You will kneel at my throne, wearing whatever I see fit to put you in that day, or that hour. You will wear every mark of everything I’ve done to you. And if I order you to give yourself to me—” She turned her head toward the door, and her lips sharpened into a smile. “Then it doesn’t matter where we are, what we are doing, or who is nearby. Or if the doors are open. Still…” She walked her fingers along his cheek before cupping it and leaning in. “You wouldn’t want anyone to walk in and see, would you? You all but naked, riding my dick, as I sit here, or kneeling to take me in your mouth—or using your tongue inside me. That would shame you. Humiliate you. An angel feasting on me like a glutton, or rocking in my lap like the little slut you are.”  
  
Gabriel’s cock had hardened so much that he could barely understand what she was saying. With a smile, Beelzebub peered over the throne’s iron armrest at him.   
  
“Oh, yes. You really should be ashamed of yourself.” With a flick of her finger, the manacles on his ankles opened. “Come here.” Beelzebub kept her gaze on him as she unbuttoned her trousers. “You’re going to straddle my thighs and fuck yourself on my dick now. And if someone comes in to find me, well then.” The smile took on a twist of menace. “Maybe it will be Hastur. And maybe, if she’s been very, very good and hasn’t discorporated anyone or fucked her boyfriend somewhere else that she shouldn’t, I’ll let her take your measurements again.”  
  
She patted her lap, then the space between her right thigh and the throne’s armrest. “Kneel around me. There’s plenty of room for you to fit.”  
  
Beelzebub let go of the lead just long enough for Gabriel to rise and to straddle her on the throne. Balancing on his knees while steadying himself was slightly harder than he’d anticipated, but when Beelzebub assured him that he wouldn’t overbalance them both (“It is bolted to the floor, Gabriel. _Really_, now.”), he settled in with only a little more shifting.  
  
“Clumsy angel,” Beelzebub murmured as she kneaded his abused rear. When she squeezed it, Gabriel arched his back as he stiffened even more. “We’re going to try something this morning—two things.”  
  
Gabriel’s face burned with sunlight as she slipped two fingers beneath the fragile gusset covering his testicles and perineum and yanked it to the side.  
  
“You’re going to leave this on while you ride me. You can get as hard as you want, but you’re not to tear it or to get it wet. Not until I give you permission. Do you understand?”  
  
“Yes, Beel— Yes, Master.”

“We’ll use a cock ring later. But for now, you’re going to learn how to control this gorgeous body of yours.” She circled a nipple with the ragged nail on her index finger, and Gabriel gasped as she scraped it across the bud. “You picked the best corporeal form you could dream up, didn’t you, pretty? Vanity as well as gluttony?” She tsked, and Gabriel moaned as she pinched the bud this time. “Hm, you really_ are _a sensual being, aren’t you, Archangel I Don’t Like Gross Matter?”   
  
Before Gabriel could respond, she squeezed his cheeks and spread them. Holding the gusset clear of his entrance, she covered the area with the same warm fluid she’d used yesterday.  
  
Had it only been yesterday? How could so much change so quickly, particularly for beings for whom time was largely irrelevant?

“Lubricant,” she explained, and Gabriel shuddered and hissed as one of her fingers pressed into his channel. “We could, of course, go without it. Go without a lot of things. But this way is much more fun—particularly for a filthy little angel who gave himself a fully functioning pleasure center.”  
  
“It, ah—”  
  
He had, hadn’t he?  
  
“That’s right.” Beelzebub pushed upward, then back out. “Enough?”  
  
“No,” Gabriel warbled. “I’d … you could even use another.”  
  
“Greed too,” Beelzebub confirmed with a smirk. He whimpered as a second finger joined the first. “Shh, shh, shh,” she soothed, cupping his cheek as Gabriel began rocking up and down on those fingers, keening softly. “Keep your eyes open. Look at me. And remember—”  
  
He whimpered as she added a third.  
  
“No coming until I tell you.”   
  
Gabriel whimpered again, this time in extreme displeasure, as she pulled her fingers from him. But when she took her cock out, his frustration turned into wonderment.  
  
“There you go,” she agreed as she ran her hand along it. “Now tell me you want it.”  
  
“I want it.”  
  
“And do you need it?”  
  
“Yes,” Gabriel whimpered.  
  
“Then put your hands on the bar above my head and mount it, pretty. And show me how much do.”  
  
Gabriel’s thighs shook so hard that he wasn’t able to rise onto his knees until the second try—which, thankfully, only got a little “tch” of laughter from Beelzebub.   
  
When he raised his hips and sank down on her, he nearly fell against the back of the throne.  
  
She was so big. How was she so big? How was this so good?  
  
“Yeah, you like that,” Beelzebub murmured, dragging a nail along his left cheek. “You like that, don’t you, pet?”  
  
Gabriel wheezed out a yes. “So—fuck. You’re so—How?”  
“Greedy.” Beelzebub slapped his left cheek again. “Vain.” Another slap. “Gluttonous.” Another. “Lustful.” And another. “And foul-mouthed too.”  
  
She thrust up into him and Gabriel cried out.  
  
“Yeah, I like that. Tell me how fucking good it is.”  
  
“Fucking good,” Gabriel stammered. “Real good.”  
  
She slapped his rear again. “Then start riding it, you fucking slut. I’m waiting.”  
  
And Gabriel did. The bar along the back of the throne heated as he gripped it and began rocking up and down, up and down. How did he know to do this? He hadn’t known how to do this a day ago? But his mind was too shattered to give the thought any consideration. And when Beelzebub dragged her nails over his right nipple, he forgot he had any thoughts at all.  
  
“Harder,” Beelzebub growled, yanking on the nub. “Or maybe you don’t want this as much as I thought, hm? Or maybe you need me to call Dagon back. Or Ligur. Or Hastur. Would you like that, pretty? Want them to watch you humiliate yourself again, fucking yourself on your Master like the slut you are?”  
  
Gabriel nearly came as she grabbed his ass and dug her fingers into it as she yanked him forward.  
  
When her cock hit another angle inside him, he couldn’t help it. Three more thrusts and he soaked the single scrap of clothing she’d permitted him, his thighs, and oh, oh—  
  
He’d never seen stars that looked like this. Never felt them igniting deep inside him.  
  
When he could think again, he was somehow still hanging on to the bar, his shoulders shuddering with too-fast breaths he didn’t need, the corporeal form he didn’t need, but needed so badly, filled with nothing but her.   
  
Nothing but her.  
  
Beneath him, Beelzebub arched her head back, exposing her burned and scarred neck. With a soft, pleased gasp, her eyes closed, and waves of wetness filed him with more stars, more suns.  
  
When Gabriel came back again, his thighs were drenched, and Beelzebub’s jacket had been spattered with white film.  
  
After a few shuddering breaths, Beelzebub’s dark blue eyes opened again. “Well, would you look at this,” she murmured as she turned her gaze to her chest. “Even your come is pretty.” She ran a finger through a pearl of it, then ran the tip around her lips, and Gabriel nearly hardened again as her tongue darted out and lapped at it.  
  
“Mhh,” she murmured, closing her eyes again. “Now that? That’s very nizzze. But you weren’t very nizzze to me, were you, pet?” Her eyes snapped back open, and the fierce look in them made him shiver. “Look what you did.” Her hand closed over bulge in his underwear and squeezed. “You disobeyed a direct order. I guess we can add pride to the list too. Bad pet.” She slapped him across it, then grabbed his hips and pulled.   
  
Gabriel’s face heated as she tore the G-string from him.  
  
Beelzebub drew it to her nose and inhaled. Releasing the breath on a sigh, she bunched up the ruined garment and tucked it away inside her jacket. “Really, I’ve been very generous with you. I gave you something nice to wear, something you definitely liked, and you ruined it.” She shook her head, tsking. “Maybe you don’t deserve clothing after all. Not that you should be upset,” she said, pressing a finger against his lips as he tried to speak. “You look better without it. Everyone thinks so.”  
  
Gabriel’s cock was stirring again.   
  
“Really?” Beelzebub asked, slapping it again. “You’re going to do that after how disobedient you’ve been?”  
  
“I can’t help it.” Gabriel’s protest ended in a cry of pleasure as she slapped it again. “Please!”  
  
“What is it you need, pet? Tell your Master.”  
  
“You,” Gabriel asked.   
  
“And have you had enough yet?”  
  
“No. N-never enough.”  
  
“I see.” Beelzebub grabbed the chain attached to his collar and pulled him down into a salty-sweet kiss. His lips parted to let her tongue into him, and when she withdrew at last, he wondered how he hadn’t bent the bar beneath his grip.  
  
“That’s unfortunate,” Beelzebub informed him as she trailed kisses across his chest. “Because naughty, disobedient angels don’t get enough.” She bounced her thighs. “Get up.” When Gabriel moaned in frustration, she slapped him across the face. “I said. Get up.”  
  
Somehow, he obeyed. And after tucking her cock away, Beelzebub stood too.  
  
“Come on,” she ordered. “I’m going to show you what happens to bad angels who can’t control themselves.” She gripped his lead as she stepped from the dais, and Gabriel counted as a miracle the fact Gabriel didn’t fall as he stumbled after her.  
  
“What are you going to do to me?”

  
Beelzebub glanced over her shoulder at him with a gimlet smile. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” A corner of her mouth pulled up cruelly. “But you like tasting things, and I’m a generous Master, so I’ll give you a little taste: I’m going to teach you how to keep your cock under control. And this time, you won’t disobey.” Her eyes glinted with just a hint of red. “You won’t be able to.”  
  
As she turned and led him from the chamber, Gabriel followed obediently, his face every bit as heated as his rear.  
  
Not even a day ago, he had been staring out of windows far too much.   
  
And now understood exactly what he’d been looking for.

“Hurry up,” Beelzebub snapped. “Stop dragging your feet, or your punishment will be even worse. Then again, I shouldn’t threaten you with that, should I? You’d only like it even more.”  
  
“Yes, Master,” Gabriel said demurely.  
  
Oh, yes he would.  
  
He would indeed.  


**Author's Note:**

> The title of this fic comes from the Poe song of the same name. For an playlist-in-progress, visit: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/50mrbzYYPT6rzqhF1q0nni?si=BZ_ueH7ZRHear8v7LPMYuw


End file.
